Here are Julian Bream and John Williams playing the exquisite Suite for 2 Guitars by William Lawes.
Lawes was a 17th century composer, son of Thomas Lawes, a vicar choral at Salisbury Cathedral. He wrote quite a lot of secular and sacred music; this particular piece is probably among his best known compositions.
I saw Julian Bream in person in Cardiff in the late ‘60s; I confess, for me, the highlight of his performance was a mistake he made in something I was attempting to play at the time.
Interestingly, even though Bream and Williams are among the foremost classical guitarists of their generation, neither is a musical snob. Bream loved nothing better than to thump out some Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz with his mates and Williams has recorded many jazz and pop tunes.
I suspect this posting has to do with yesterday’s “Scarborough Fair” debate.
As part of those goings-on, I will add this. It is not musical snobbery to appreciate the finely-honed thousand- year-old tradition of truly outstanding Anglican choral music. Seems to me there are insinuations here that it is. Not much thought goes into in the retort of, “You are jealous!” or “You are a snob!” That stance, to my mind, seems analagous to the “school of dumbing-down” that has infected our western world. I thought that this site took a reasoned and witty stand against that sort of perspective. That’s one reason I find the “musical snobbery” accusations, on this site, so odd. It is contrary to the whole gist of what is being presented here in other ways. Mr. Jenkins, you seem to have an excellent grasp of logic all around, so why this? I understand that you play the guitar yourself, but surely we all have hobbies in wider life we do not expect to be part of our Christian worship?
Ah-h-h, back to the guitar business. No, there is absolutely nothing wrong with gutiar music in general, and I do imagine that had I been in the congregation when Hans Gruber first played his “Silent Night” on guitar for his parish, all those Christmas Eves ago, I too would have been overwhelmed with the wonder and simple beauty of it. The same is probably true of what the two genetleman guitar-players mentioned above might be able to offer in particular circumstances.
However, the guitar, and guitar players, came to be associated with certain attitueds and perspectives and lifestyles, back in the 1960s, in our culture. Every North American teenage boy in 1968 or ’69 wanted desperately to form a rock band in his parents’ garage, and play lead guitar. Sexual and profane overtones were de riguer. A whole industry and form of popular entertainment grew up quickly aroung the guitar-playing rocker. They were hip, they were cool, they were bad. Many of them became as profane as the venue they were playing would allow them to be. So many of these “musicians” tried very hard to be antithesis of what Christianity is supposed to be about. Their fans loved it. Soon, to the astonishment of many others, clergy began to think that giving over the altar at their churches to be transformed into a rocker’s-paradise-of-a- stage would bring the crowds in. The young ones, especially. They forgot about worship, and sold out to entertainment instead. In our new society, the guitar and its players became a symbol of profane entertainment (Gordon Lightfoot and Liona Boyd can skip that adjective). The players wore tight ripped bluejeans on the altar, pushed pulpits and crosses out of the way for sound equipment, and threw back their hair every other beat to get further into the melodrama of it all. The audience — oops, congregation — lapped it all up….for the most part. This ceased to be worship. It was pure entertainment. It was pure ego. Some of us left in disgust. The collection-takings must have been at least fairly good though, because the guitar-players kept being invited back. The beautiful, prayerful psalms and the crisp enunciation of God’s word in the age-old choral mass settings were replaced by four-letter words and assorted slang from the altar. Teenage groupies would gather round at the end, wanting to know where the next “gig” was going to be. I saw it all, for years and years. And that is why I have come to the conclusion that guitar music in our western Christian churches in the modern day very often equates with more-or-less profane entertainment, and that the thousand-year-old musical choral tradition, when taken seriously, usually equates with respectful worship. There may, of course, be exceptions to both, but by and large, this is what I have experienced.
When I noted that at least a large number of ANIC parishes took the guitar-playing with them but left the Anglican choral music tradition, my heart sank. This had nothing to do with musical taste, which is a terribly surface-residing interpretation of my reaction. Does anyone understand the power of the symbol?
An afterthought. In case some readers would like to put my views down to “old-fogey-ism,” I will add that old age is still on the fairly distant horizon for me. The rock culture came of age long before I did.
Well said, Anonymous.
I love guitar music as much as any other and I’ve heard John Williams play in concert. Jazz, by the way, is a great art form … so Bream and Williams were hardly “slumming” when they “thumped” out some tunes in that idiom.
People can make idols of all kinds of things … including their own thinking in regards to what other people’s idol-making looks like. Matthew 7:5 perhaps?
I think the debate boils down to the delineation George Orwell made when he wrote that all art is propaganda … but not all propaganda is art.